Things Running Out of Hand in Pakistan
It seems that Pakistanis haven’t responded calmly to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Instead, her supporters started rioting and Musharraf didn’t handle the sudden death of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister all too well either.
The official story is that she died because her head smacked into the roof of the car. That doesn’t sound all that believable, so her supporters have called on the government to exhume her body. Today a government official said that the government is “willing to exhume Miss Bhutto’s party if her party requested, to quash rumours of a cover-up.”
It seems to me that they should do so soon; whether the supporters of Bhutto want it or not. Musharraf has to be open about it and he has to unite the people, not divide them by giving people the impression that the Pakistani secret service is covering things up.
It is, of course, highly unlikely that Musharraf is involved since her death doesn’t help him one bit. But, his opponents don’t want a true reason to throw Pakistan into chaos, they only need an excuse. As long as he doesn’t deal with the conspiracy theories, they’ll continue to exist. As Ed Morrissey puts it, Musharraf is right to offer to exhume Bhutto’s body; Ed basically argues that Musharraf is calling bluff.
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Nazar Sharif [or whomever] are leaders so corrupt and dishonest that Bhutto, no Caesar’s wife herself, was squeaky clean in comparison. Unfortunately, Benazir was prone to take risks and just loved the adulation of her adoring followers one too many times.
Pakistan simply is a collection of ethnic identities cobbled together by the Muslim religion—Bangladesh peeled off because there has never been a sense of polity or constitutional government in the nation, just grasping striving politicians and an all-powerful Army. Like Turkey & Egypt [& other Muslim countries], the Army will continue to call the shots politically if not constitutionally.
Al Qaeda probably pulled this off with cooperation from rogue ISI or military security personnel. There is no way except a return to martial law that will allow Pakistan to cool down—sad as it is to say that.